London Classic

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The annual London Classic, inspired and organised by the indefatigable Malcolm Pein, is now underway at London’s Olympia. The website is www.londonchessclassic.com and in the stellar line-up are Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Veselin Topalov, Alexander Grischuk, Viswanathan Anand, Anish Giri, Lev Aronian, Michael Adams and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

This is the highest-rated tournament ever held on British soil, though Nottingham 1936 can challenge for quality given that five world champions were competing, namely Emanuel Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe and Botvinnik.

London has been the scene of many brilliant games, jewels in the crown of chess art. This week I give two examples of coruscating brilliance.

The introduction of the British Knockout Championship, with a record £50,000 prize fund, is a most welcome innovation, and an achievement of which the chief organiser Malcolm Pein can be justly proud. The contestants are: David Howell, Luke McShane, Nigel Short, Gawain Jones, Jonathan Rowson, Jonathan Hawkins, Daniel Fernandez and Yang-Fan Zhou.

With Christmas approaching, those in search of unusual presents for chess-loving bibliophile friends and relatives would do well to consider Markus Stormson’s Curried Chess. This is a curio, packed with an interesting selection of ingenious and obscure variants on the game. Among the rarities it explores are Barbed Short Chess, Takeover Chess, and Stratak. This compendium is available from regular outlets and @troubador.co.uk.